Flu Shots Have Been Associated with More Time Spent in the Hospital

It has come to my attention that there is a huge movement against flu shots. I'm sure you've seen people posting articles in the most obnoxious places about "the jab". There are websites such as theflucase.com that post articles with titles such as "Top insurer warns 1,000 GPs to not give the flu vaccine".
It is a nice title, but if you read the article, you'll see it has nothing to do with the safety of the vaccine, but instead the legal issues involved in endorsing a treatment for special populations.

The idea is that "They" are trying to get you to inject "who knows what" into your body. "They" of course are the government, and they want you to inject "who knows what" so that they can do "who knows what" to you. This of course is the same government that the anti-flu population complains can't deliver mail reliably.

My recommendation is to read the articles people post and not just the titles. One article I read from another misleading site www.mercola.com reads, "People Who Get a Seasonal Flu Shot Are Twice as Likely to Catch Swine Flu". It uses "Suggestions" from an "As-yet-unpublished" Canadian study, but the title is as sure as the evening news.

I've gotten my seasonal flu shot and I'm going to be getting my H1N1 as soon as it is available to me. I'm doing it for my baby son who can't get vaccinated, and for my patients who don't need swine flu on top of their other issues. I'm doing it for me, because a sore arm and a day or two of cold symptoms is far better than feeling like i'm going to die and missing enough work to require a repeat of an entire month of hospital training.

In Summary:
1. When you see an article that sounds ridiculous, read the entire thing and look at sources.
2. Get your flu shots, seasonal and H1N1.
3. Post your comments. If you have suggestions, comments, or rants, I will read them and likely ignore them.
4. The title of this post is an example I made up to show how ridiculous information can be when completely misinterpreted. A higher number of health care workers get the flu shot than the general population, especially health-care workers in a hospital situation, so people who get the flu shot report spending more time in the hospital than than the average person.